On: Home Improvements with Strangers

Nice guy you don't know (yet) working in your inner sanctum

On: Home Improvements with Strangers
Colleen Rogers

There is nothing more awkward than having people you don't know...do things you have to trust them to do...while they wander around messing in...your own home.  The palpable discomfort that this scenario inspires is nearly horror movie epic.  

"An abode of doom, set recognizable for anyone who lives under at least a non-lean-to shack.  There's appears to be a structural problem therein.  You call some guy you did not find on Angie's List.  He eventually sends a Shady Someone Cousin.  You are desperate, so you do not fact check Pentagon clearance on the Repairman.  Through gauzy curtains you see that he has a truck---they always have a deep bed truck.  You let him in...he mumbles a price.  He starts to work on what is "mysteriously off".  The Handyman freely traverses the freeway of your residence for days turning off water, lights, heat. He doesn't seem to have a clear plan, and you begin to shiver thirsty in the cold and dark, praying for tool pack-up or your own demise, whichever comes first.  You ultimately agree to pay whatever estimate he whisper-panted just to get him off your premises.  He said he did not have just what he needed to finish the job at hand today, so you finally scream for the barbed wire...anything just to complete days of interminable torture."

In actuality, though, the table-turning repair/remodeling experiences I have muscled through in my house have been generally favorable.  With research and referrals, I have been able to work with true professionals and masters of their crafts, and have avoided major mishaps.  I do still have, while undergoing such experiences, an abiding sense of dis-ease when my home suddenly becomes a "work site".  Just as our in-laws used to attest to the fact that "no home is big enough for two families", such as it is with you and your repair/construction team.  There's always that "first-date", "guest-stayed-too-long" bumbling undercurrent.  Yes, your house is their job site...but, it is also where you shower and change, talk to your dog, kiss your spouse (occasionally), and generate the perfume of dinner.  The comfortable breeze of your residence is suddenly construct-errupted; your home now takes on the air of  a Hollywood set.  Your "crew" breaks down the scenery while you self-consciously spit out the lines of your daily routine.  You tweak your behaviors, and you find yourself acting like a "lady who lunches", or a fifties' sitcom Mom.  Unwittingly, you conceal the over-casual nature of your home. You begin to say things to your husband like, "Oh, whatever shall I prepare for dinner this evening, D-a-r-l-i-n-g?"  It is akin to looking behind you when you trip to see what it was that could ever have defeated your surefootedness.  Evidently, it's a Martha Stewart "good thing" to clean up your "residential house" in order to clean up your personal one as well.  Looking forward to my shiny new doors...